RUNAWAY PAIN: Carmelo Anthony — here in action against former Knick Danilo Gallinari of the Nuggets — should not be criticized for sitting out games instead of playing hurt, says The Post’s Peter Vecsey.AP

If players only love you when they’re playing, imagine how tough they are on themselves for deciding against suiting up.

The pressure from within to play, no matter how hurt, is far more demanding than the subtle suggestions of a team’s medical staff, behind-the-back criticism of coaches and teammates, or mindless indictments by the media.

As a result, ailing athletes must be rescued from their self-destructive competitive spirit.

The renowned and repulsive illustrations of athletes who have made time for the pain are incalculable. That’s the trouble — their occasionally imprudent reasoning is celebrated from sea to shining shore by people who live paycheck to paycheck and regularly must get out of sick beds to do actual work.

Such adulation, of course, additionally inspires athletes to mute injuries with pain killers or ignore their damage claims beyond the call of cogency, and the twisted cycle nearly never discontinues.

So, when a player of Carmelo Anthony’s magnitude chose to sit out Friday in Miami and last night in Houston in order to rest and rehabilitate assorted wounded vital parts he might have to use in later life, naturally observers reacted, well, rather recklessly.

Apparently, if Kobe Bryant is somehow able to mentally subjugate his suffering and lead the NBA in scoring despite a torn ligament in his shooting wrist, then that’s how all paid professionals should be measured and judged.

Why would Anthony play against the Bobcats and Cavaliers, the Knicks’ two previous opponents, ESPN studio analyst Jon Barry derisively questioned before the game, and chose (the operative word) to shut it down against the Heat?

Barry’s provincial point: The Knicks-Heat matchup was a much bigger game than those other two considering the surfeit of superstars on tap.

How dare Melo bail on the cable network after all the promotion it did.

Maybe Barry calculates the NBA standings differently than the rest of us, but as far as I know, a win or a loss against the Bobcats and Cavaliers count the same as a victory or loss to the Heat — at least in the regular season.

Instead of looking at it self-servingly, Barry should have credited Anthony for playing wounded in two non-marquee games and deciding not to let his ego get the best of him against the Heat for the good of the Knicks and, ahem, his long-term welfare.

Melo didn’t choose to do it this way, it just happened. You know how it works; he took one game at a time. Anthony has been playing hurt for weeks, but he pushed his luck in Charlotte and performed shoddier than ever before (0-for-7 from the field, one free throw) offensively. Then he tried again in Cleveland and went straight from inferior to the infirmary.

To submit Melo chose the games he plays and sits — like he picked and chose his new team — is patently absurd.

To top that, now they’re calling him Yellow Melo for supposedly not wanting a piece of LeBron James.

Let’s put our Tarot cards on the table.

It’s fair game to go after a player for his presentation or lack thereof.

It’s fair game to go after a team for assembling a 3-D roster, as in disjointed, dysfunctional and delusional.

But it’s wrong on so many levels to insinuate a player punked out.

Obviously, it has become open season on Anthony.

You can say many things about the guy — I blame myself — but “camera shy” is not one of them. To purport Anthony might have been afraid of the Big Bad Bron is scandalously far-fetched.

What, unless an ankle is broken, an ACL is torn, or a heart requires surgery, it’s OK to question a player’s manhood and accuse him of being scared off by the comp?

Hey, I’m well aware of the numbers, that he’s shooting less than 40 percent for the season and even worse over the past handful of games. Nevertheless, intimating that the guy needed an Ace bandage for his ego is about as truthful as a campaign ad.

Wonder what Willis Reed, Bill Walton, Earl Monroe and dozens upon dozens of former NBA players, who played hurt or took a shot of Dave Corzine and now need a crane to get out of bed each morning and a cane thereafter, have to say on this subject.

Think they’re questioning Melo’s motives for bagging the Heat game?

Think Anthony might be getting some text support from Dirk Nowitzki, Derrick Rose, Dwayne Wade, Andrea Bargnani, who reinjured his left calf in his second game back after sitting out six games and is now out indefinitely, and dozens upon dozens of other currently injured NBA players?

Wonder what J.R. Richard would say to Melo’s detractors.

While we’re on the subject of Knicks-Heat, how about Take a Hike Mike D’Antoni and that can’t-miss offensive philosophy, “Long Distance Is the Next Best Thing to Being Competitive.” I mean, 43 treys! The captain of that Italian luxury liner has a better chance of righting his ship.